Lee Van Orden CHILDREN ARE AN IMPORTANT RENEWABLE RESOURCE Lee Van Orden Clementine’s 12:15:00
Attendees: (to be added later)
CHILDREN ARE AN IMPORTANT RENEWABLE RESOURCE
Promoting Volunteerism in Youth
The quote of the day regarding Harrisonburg’s Sustainability Summit came from Gene Hart who said “All of these issues interrelate. And when they don’t, we have to make them interrelate.”
The concept of our youth being a valuable renewable resource was the focus of our group.
• Good things are happening in Harrisonburg and Rockingham County including the new E.D.G.E. events being held by the Youth Advisory Council, supported by the Healthy Community Council.
(Next Healthy Community Council meeting–June 9, 8-10am/Detwiler Auditorium-VMRC)
• The Gus Bus is providing fun, educational opportunities in a non-threatening way to youth in our community.
• Camp Kaleidoscope promotes love, hope and healing to our most vulnerable youth. Camp K is a summer day camp for children with a special focus on children in foster care.
• Concerns were raised about the lack of children’s services available locally.
• A gentleman said “It is immoral to give up on these kids.”
• We need to have job-skills related programs.
• A concern is the number of non-citizens who are afraid to request services. Same for children who are in kinship care. (Children living with extended family members and not usually receiving public assistance)
• Art and Music and Fun are important elements for children.
• Studies show that children suffer when green space is unavailable.
• The book The Courage to Teach by author Parker Palmer was suggested as good reading.
• We need to ensure that issues regarding vulnerable youth are on the radar screen of decision-makers in our community. We need to unite so that sub-issues do not cause the message to be lost.
• There are no children that we can afford to write off as “lost”. If we simply focus on “return on investment” and “cost/benefit analysis”, it makes sense to invest in children early.
• More attention needs to be placed on prevention. Foster care prevention, substance abuse prevention, pregnancy prevention.
• An attendee, a special education teacher, observed children are open and willing to learn. Teachers are not just teaching educational material, but also having to teach morals and values in school.
• Teacher salaries have prevented good teachers from seeking employment locally.
• Concerns were raised about the “New Freedom Commission” and medicating children too early and “Teen Screening” in order to medicate teens unnecessarily.
The general consensus of the group was that our children are a valuable resource in our community. They are an untapped source of energy that could be used for many good purposes. They embrace more readily the concept of taking care of our planet and our community. The special ed teacher indicated that her students take recycling very seriously. A parent indicated that her 7 year old innocently embraces the notion of the importance of “green living”. We could learn a lot from their example.
If you help ONE child survive tough times, they may grow to help a thousand.
An individual who works with The Office on Children and Youth reiterated the importance of developing job skills in youth.
